Great Designer Search 2 - Essay Questions

[Thomas David Baker]

1.  Introduce yourself and explain why you are a good fit for this internship.
2. You are instructed to move an ability from one color to another. This ability must be something used in every set (i.e. discard, direct damage, card drawing etc.). You may not choose an ability that has already been color shifted by R&D. What ability do you shift and to what color do you shift it? Explain why you would make that shift.
3. What block do you feel did the best job of integrating design with creative? What is one more thing that could have been done to make it even better?
4. R&D has recently been looking at rules in the game that aren't pulling their weight. If you had to remove an existing rule from the game for not being worth its inclusion, what would it be?
5. Name a card currently in Standard that, from a design standpoint, should not have been printed. What is the card and why shouldn't we have printed it?
6. What do you think design can do to best make the game accessible to newer players?
7. What do you think design can do to best make the game attractive to experienced players?
8. Of all the mechanics currently in Extended, which one is the best designed? Explain why.
9. Of all the mechanics currently in Extended, which one is the worst designed? Explain why.
10. Choose a plane to revisit other than Dominaria or Mirrodin. What is a mechanical twist we could add if we revisit this plane?

[Thomas David Baker]

These are hard questions!

For (2) I'd want to color shift something into R because R is so narrow. Unblockable, maybe, representing the sheer speed of the creature??? Efficient unblockable guys + burn = all other decks lose though, possibly.

For (3) I might make a spirited defense of LRW-SHM block.

Not got any great ideas for (4). Comedy suggestion is to remove the combat phase :)

For (5) I'd probably go off on one about Jace TMS and Planeswalkers in general. And get put to the bottom of the pile.

(6) and (7) are another excuse for a rant about Planeswalkers and terrible marketing that will get you removed from consideration :)

Not sure what to say about (8) and (9). I love Shriekmaw and Mulldrifter and Cloudthresher so I'd probably do Evoke as the best designed and talk about how it gives you the player options and also decisions and how it allows interactions like getting Mulldrifter back with Cruel Ultimatum. You could definitely slag off Cascade but that's a bit obvious.

(10) is definitely the time to go back to Kamigawa. Just like Scars is "Mirrodin, but not broken", (10) can be "Kamigawa, but not nerfed".

You?

[James Mills]

Kamigawa was good because it was nerfed!!!


Thomas David Baker said:

These are hard questions!

For (2) I'd want to color shift something into R because R is so narrow. Unblockable, maybe, representing the sheer speed of the creature??? Efficient unblockable guys + burn = all other decks lose though, possibly.

For (3) I might make a spirited defense of LRW-SHM block.

Not got any great ideas for (4). Comedy suggestion is to remove the combat phase :)

For (5) I'd probably go off on one about Jace TMS and Planeswalkers in general. And get put to the bottom of the pile.

(6) and (7) are another excuse for a rant about Planeswalkers and terrible marketing that will get you removed from consideration :)

Not sure what to say about (8) and (9). I love Shriekmaw and Mulldrifter and Cloudthresher so I'd probably do Evoke as the best designed and talk about how it gives you the player options and also decisions and how it allows interactions like getting Mulldrifter back with Cruel Ultimatum. You could definitely slag off Cascade but that's a bit obvious.

(10) is definitely the time to go back to Kamigawa. Just like Scars is "Mirrodin, but not broken", (10) can be "Kamigawa, but not nerfed".

You?

[Kieran Symington]

I was going to think about this properly, but the questions are quite involved and I haven't really had time. So far, I've only thought of a few things:

2. Tapping & Untapping permanents from Blue to Green - Green already has land untapping and is supposed to have vigilance as a secondary ability, plus it has things like seedborne muse. Plus, it has artifact and land destruction, and tapping these sort of permanents is a similar ability. As the "creature colour", it seems odd that green has no form of creature control, and it fits the flavour of green that its shamans/druids would have some control over creatures. Stopping things from untapping can remain in blue, though.

3. Zendikar Block for sure. Landfall not so much, but the traps having alternate "trap" costs was awesomely flavourful and the allies really seemed like a band of adventurers working together.

5. Hoarding Dragon. The ability is completely out of red's section of the colour pie (searching is blue/black and artifact searching especially is blue, plus red's position on artifacts is that it loves destroying them and this doesn't fit with that at all), the dragon has none of the abilities generally associated with dragons (firebreathing or paying red mana to deal damage), and as a 4/4 it's pretty small for a dragon to start with.

That's only three answers. Glad I'm not actually paticipating in this as doing them all as essays would be an absolute nightmare!